QUESTIONS
1. There is one word in the English language that is always pronounced incorrectly. What is it?
2. A man gave one son 10 cents and another son was given 15 cents. What time is it?
3. A boat has a ladder that has six rungs, each rung is one foot apart. The bottom rung is one foot from the water. The tide rises at 12 inches every 15 minutes. High tide peaks in one hour. When the tide is at it’s highest, how many rungs are under water?
4. There is a house with four walls. Each wall faces south. There is a window in each wall. A bear walks by one of the windows. What color is the bear?
5. Is half of two plus two equal to two or three?
6. There is a room. The shutters are blowing in. There is broken glass on the floor. There is water on the floor. You find Sloppy dead on the floor. Who is Sloppy? How did Sloppy die?
7. How much dirt would be in a hole 6 feet deep and 6 feet wide that has been dug with a square edged shovel?
8. If I were in Hawaii and dropped a bowling ball in a bucket of water which is 45 degrees F, and dropped another ball of the same weight, mass,and size in a bucket at 30 degrees F, both of them
at the same time, which ball would hit the bottom of the bucket first? Same question, but the location is in Canada?
9. What is the significance of the following: The year is 1978, thirty-four minutes past noon on May 6th.
10. What can go up a chimney down, but can’t go down a chimney up? (hint… chim chimminy)
11. If a farmer has 5 haystacks in one field and 4 haystacks in the other field, how many haystacks would he have if he combined them all in the center field?
12. What is it that goes up and goes down but does not move?
13. A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging fires, the second is full of assassins with loaded guns, and the third is full of lions that haven’t eaten in 3 years. Which room is safest for him?
14. A woman shoots her husband.Then she holds him under water for over 5 minutes. Finally, she hangs him. But 5 minutes later they both go out together and enjoy a wonderful dinner together. How can this be?
15. There are two plastic jugs filled with water. How could you put all of this water into a barrel, without using the jugs or any dividers, and still tell which water came from which jug?
16. What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and gray when you throw it away?
17. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words: Monday,Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday?
18. This is an unusual paragraph. I’m curious how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it? It looks so plain you would think nothing was wrong with it! In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is unusual though. Study it, and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out! Try to do so without any coaching!
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“Answers To Brain Teasers”
1. The word “incorrectly.” {Almost cracked your brain, didn’t you?}
2. 1:45. The man gave away a total of 25 cents. He divided it between two people. Therefore, he gave a quarter to two.
3. None, the boat rises with the tide. Duh.
4. White. If all the walls face south, the house is at the North pole, and the bear, therefore, is a polar bear.
5. Three. Well, it seems that it could almost be either, but if you follow the mathematical orders of operation, division is performed before addition. So… half of two is one. Then add two, and the answer is three.
6. Sloppy is a (gold)fish. The wind blew the shutters in, which knocked his goldfish-bowl off the table, and it broke, killing him. {Poor Sloppy.}
7. None. No matter how big a hole is, it’s still a hole: the absence of dirt. (And those of you who said 36 cubic feet are wrong for another reason, too. You would have needed the length measurement too. So you don’t even know how much air is in the hole.)
8. Both questions, same answer: the ball in the bucket of 45 degree F water hits the bottom of the bucket last. Did you think that the water in the 30 degree F bucket is frozen? Think again. The question said nothing about that bucket having anything in it. Therefore, there is no water (or ice) to slow the ball down…
9. The time and month/date/year American style calendar are 12:34, 5/6/78.
10. An umbrella.
11. One. If he combines all of his haystacks, they all become one big stack.
12. The temperature.
13. The third. Lions that haven’t eaten in three years are dead.
14. The woman was a photographer. She shot a picture of her husband,developed it, and hung it up to dry.
15. Freeze them first. Take them out of the jugs and put the ice in the barrel. You will be able to tell which water came from which jug.
16. The answer is Charcoal. In Homer Simpson’s words: hmmmm…Barbecue.
17. Sure you can: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow!
18. The letter “e”, which is the most common letter in the English language, does not appear once in the long paragraph.